At 3 pm on Monday and again at 7 am on Tuesday (July 2-3) a private
traditional (Tridentine) low Mass was celebrated in Our Lady of Fatima's
Eucharistic Adoration Chapel by Fr. James Fryar,
FSSP and attended by a couple of dozen local
Catholics who had learned of the special occasion on short notice. These
were the first Latin Masses celebrated in our new church, and probably
the first ones celebrated in OLOF parish in almost four decades. Fr.
Fryar is a member of the Priestly
Fraternity of St. Peter, a world-wide clerical
society that was instituted by Pope John Paul II to promote the
traditional Latin Mass, and which assisted the Diocese of Knoxville in
beginning its weekly Latin
Masses. In his capacity as chaplain of the
English-speaking members of the Confraternity of St. Peter, a lay organization
associated with the FSSP, Fr. Fryar stopped here on his way from
spending June at the FSSP seminary in Nebraska teaching overflow
workshops for already ordained priests learning to celebrate the
traditional Mass to Florida to open a new Latin Mass mission there.